Shovel Ready: A Spademan Novel (Paperback)

January 2014 Indie Next List

“I have always been a fan of dystopian novels, but when I picked up Sternbergh's novel I was unprepared for the post-dirty bomb New York that awaited me. This book is a sucker punch, plain and simple. Gritty, taut, and compelling, Shovel Ready paints a grim and savage portrait of a future where the rich have quite literally checked out and the rest of New York is treading water in the ashes of a once-great city. A fantastic read!”
— Raymond Lawrason, Copperfield's Books, Sebastopol, CA

Description

The futuristic hardboiled noir that Lauren Beukes calls “sharp as a paper-cut” about a garbage man turned kill-for-hire.

Spademan used to be a garbage man. That was before the dirty bomb hit Times Square, before his wife was killed, and before the city became a blown-out shell of its former self.

Now he’s a hitman.

In a near-future New York City split between those who are wealthy enough to “tap in” to a sophisticated virtual reality, and those who are left to fend for themselves in the ravaged streets, Spademan chose the streets. When his latest client hires him to kill the daughter of a powerful evangelist, he must navigate between these two worlds—the wasteland reality and the slick fantasy—to finish his job, clear his conscience, and make sure he’s not the one who winds up in the ground.

About the Author

Adam Sternbergh is a contributing editor for New York magazine and Vulture. Formerly culture editor of The New York Times Magazine, his writing has appeared in GQ and the Times of London and on This American Life. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his family. Shovel Ready is his first novel. His second, Near Enemy, will be published in 2015.

www.adamsternbergh.com · @sternbergh

Praise For…

A Newsweek Best Books for 2014 Salon.com Top Critics’ Best of 2014 selectionA 2015 Edgar Award Nominee

“[A] sardonic thriller that serves up lots of barbs. . . . Uniquely engaging. . . . A great read, and its world still manages to hold you in its dirty clutches until the violent, fascinating conclusion.” —io9.com

“Energetic. . . . An enjoyable read.” —The Boston Globe

“A fast-paced thriller. . . . Darkly humorous, darkly cynical and darkly violent. Yeah, pretty dark. But the spare prose and no-nonsense voice of the troubled hitman narrator is so riveting and sympathetic that it is really difficult to put this book down.” —Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Orange County Register

“The best of two dark, amoral, existentially empty worlds!” —Time

“Boy, does this plot drive. It’s one of those books so gripping you read the whole thing in a single go. . . . Swift, [with] expertly timed twists and shocks, very hard to put down.” —The Guardian (UK)

“A lean thriller. . . . Sternbergh knows his way around the style, matching the staccato rhythms of violence to those of language. . . . [If] you want to know if it’s as awesome as it sounds. It is.” —Chicago Tribune

“Gripping. . . . A sharp, thought-provoking thriller. . . . The strongest impact of the book is the constant feeling it gives that the ghosts of 9/11 still haunt New York.” —National Post

“Stunning. . . . Mixing dystopian science fiction and urban noir with a Palahniuk swagger, this could well be the first novel everybody is talking about.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Spademan is an unlikely yet tragic hero, and it takes a talented author to make a reader root for such a damaged and ruthless man. Lean prose is punctuated by moments of shocking violence that only serve to underscore the novel’s underlying humanity. . . . This is a gripping genre mash-up and a stunning debut.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“Hardboiled as f*** with writing as fierce and sharp as a paper-cut.” —Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls

“With prose chiseled to hardboiled perfection and a tale that throbs with the keen ache of noir, Adam Sternbergh’s Shovel Ready reads like William Gibson as directed with inky brilliance by Christopher Nolan. Debut novels as sleek, resonant and accomplished as this are a rare gift.” —Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me

“Shovel Ready tosses you off a precipice and you don’t know where you're going to land. Dark and often funny, with sparse, sharp language. Think Charlie Huston’s dystopian New York meets Richard Stark’s anti-hero— this is good, bitter fun.” —Toby Barlow, author of Sharp Teeth and Babayaga

“A terrific debut. It has the grimy neon feel of Warren Ellis’s Transmetropolitan combined with a touch of Philip K. Dick’s gonzo cyberpunk.” —Austin Grossman, author of You and Soon I Will Be Invincible

“Compulsive! Savage future noir that crackles with deadpan wit.” —Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker